Starting Legends

[FailTruck]

Hi all.

after spending about a year discussing "what we are going to play next" while constantly being distracted by played DnD4e we have finally put that campiang to rest and are going to start a new one using the Legends rules (the first time we have properly played a non DnD based ruleset since 1994).

The setting is going to be a rather low magic (I plan on making Common Magic an advanced skill), vaguely histrical fantasy setting.

Now to the meat of the post there are a few things I need help with.

Combat styles
What are the combat styles and where does it tell you what weapon is part of what group? I think mostly this is obvious but I wondered if I was missing a table or something

Cults
How do you go about creating cults? Is there any guidance anywhere?

Encounter balance
Are there any good guides on what a party should be able to handle in terms of combat or is it a case of eyeballing it and learning as I DM?

And if course any other advice will be greatly apprieciated!

Cheers
S

 

[Da Boss]

Combat Styles is a big one

Its something you as GM need to look at and think about before you start - how flexible you want the Styles to be and how they fit in with you campaign/players.

For instance are you going for profession based styles or cultural styles, mixing missile and melee weapons or not. Do you want "Knight" syle or Barbarain warrior style which include a variety of weapons or just specific weapons/ weapon groups - if the latter - how much do you want to define them.

You can go really simple and have just three styles:

Armed Melee
Unarmed Melee
Missile

If you have say 1HD Sword and Shield as a Style - are you happy for them to be used at no penalty on their own? And thats without even looking at how you handle the bonus CA from having two weapons................which is a important process as well before you start.

For Example my clockwork and chivalry character who is a Flamboyant and great Civil War (think Lord Flasheart) era Cavilier (thats English not colonial) has three distinct Combat Styles:

Sword and Pistol - which covers their use together or apart and even using the pistol as a small club
Black powder - which covers any muskets, carbines etc that I might obtain
and Unarmed.

There is quite a bit to think about here - some useful threads on the forum but at the end its goign to depend alot on what you and your players enjoy.

Other things:
Ignore the charging rules IMO - they don't work except in very specific circumstances - maybe just add a small bonus if someone wants to charge in.
If you are using "mook" rules where NPCs don't have location based hit points - they can actually be harder to kill than named "hard" NPCs with specific Locs.
Be careful about throwing more than a few NPCs against a player as due to the way CA's work - unlesss they are extremely good (or the NPCs bad) they will die.
Magic changes things dramatically - especially if its used RAW in a low magic setting - we just had someone use a fireblade potion in Clockwork and he was very scary............

hope this helps

 

[danskmacabre]

Be careful about throwing more than a few NPCs against a player as due to the way CA's work - unlesss they are extremely good (or the NPCs bad) they will die.

Lol, I can confirm this.
The first time I ran Elric ( which uses the legend rules) I had the party outnumbered quite a bit, but with really weak enemies. however the sheer numbers and getting overwhelmed with CAs, there was a TPK....

 

[soltakss]

after spending about a year discussing "what we are going to play next" while constantly being distracted by played DnD4e we have finally put that campiang to rest and are going to start a new one using the Legends rules (the first time we have properly played a non DnD based ruleset since 1994).

I hope you enjoy the system and carry on playing it.

The setting is going to be a rather low magic (I plan on making Common Magic an advanced skill), vaguely histrical fantasy setting.

Low magic can be good, but I would make Healing common and freely available.

Combat styles
What are the combat styles and where does it tell you what weapon is part of what group? I think mostly this is obvious but I wondered if I was missing a table or something

Combat Styles are combinations of weapons used by a warrior. They can be as restrictive or as open as you want. Don't bother balancing them or trying to make them sensible, just imagine how you want your people to fight and describe their Combat Styles.

Cults
How do you go about creating cults? Is there any guidance anywhere?

I don't know if there is guidance available from Mongoose. The Cult Compendium from Moon Design has some advice for creating RuneQuest cults, which should apply.

Start from the deity. Describe what the deity does and what stories are told about the deity. That should help you define what broad powers the deity should have and who typically worships the deity. Then work out what spells the deity should have. If you decide that the deity has a special power and no spell really reflects that power, then make one up. If you make up spells, be careful that the power level is similar to other spells of the same type, so don;t make a 2 point Common Magic spell the same as a 3 point Divine spell, for example. Work out how powerful the deity is relative to other deities, that allows you to work out how many spells it should have. A minor thief god from one town shouldn't have more spells than the local wargod, for example, unless you have a very good reason (E.g. the thief god has stolen the powers from other deities).

Encounter balance
Are there any good guides on what a party should be able to handle in terms of combat or is it a case of eyeballing it and learning as I DM?

Pretty much eyeballing it.

Parties of similar size should give PCs the edge, as they are being run by players and will have special tactics and magic.

I have found that a party will be able to kill one superior foe without a problem. Give them a couple of superior foes and they might struggle, give them as many superior foes as there are members of the party and they will probably lose.

Missile weapons can be a great leveller on both sides. Missiles can be deadly and a good archer could disable half the party without being in danger.

And if course any other advice will be greatly apprieciated!

Healing is key. Without healing, your PCs will be injured and die and players will lose interest. With healing they will take bloody combat to the extreme and enjoy it.

Try focussing on other things rather than combat. The Legend system is good at using other skills in play - you can have a session with no combat but with a lot of skill use.

Don't be skimpy with advancement. Give out more Experience Points at the end of each adventure then the rulebook recommends. It might make the PCs advance faster, but so what? I give out between 1D6+6 and 1D10+10 per session and my players love it. Think about combining Hero points and Experience Points - I don't use Experience Points and just use Hero Points for experience and for heroic actions and it works really well.

 

[Lemnoc]

Combat styles

You can go really simple and have just three styles:

Armed Melee
Unarmed Melee
Missile

This is good advice. I don't really see a purpose in being too chintzy or fiddly with combat styles, except as a mechanism to get players killed. The NPCs they meet can be assumed proficient in the weapons they're carrying (else why are they carrying them?), so all you're really doing is limiting what players may do in the heat of dangerous combat. A good presumption would be that training with a weapon also includes training in what to do when deprived of said weapon (that's why I love the rule there is no penalty when deprived of the use of a weapon).

If you have a campaign that is really fleshed out culturally, then I think you can be a bit more creative and flavorful in handling these styles. For example, in my ancient world campaign, a foray by the hoplites into territories above the Rhine introduced them to some terribly different weapons and styles. They were foreigners in a foreign land.

 

[alex_greene]

Cults
How do you go about creating cults? Is there any guidance anywhere?

Mongoose released a book for RuneQuest, "Guilds, Factions and Cults." It detailed the creation of the various factions to which a character can belong, gave these entities attributes such as its size (SIZ), wealth (WTH), influence (INF) and popularity (POP) and allowed you to create these groups and define their unique assets and strengths, as well as the various benefits available to player characters who belong, the amount of such benefits depending on how deep into the group they happen to be.

MRQ books have gone out of print, but the mechanics still work and they can prove highly useful to you as a source of patrons to send the players out on various adventures and Quests "just because," as well as being a source of major healing spells and a place to store their loot during down time, someone through which they can hire the likes of accountants during down time to manage their affairs and cash, and so on.

Encounter balance
Are there any good guides on what a party should be able to handle in terms of combat or is it a case of eyeballing it and learning as I DM?

"That which we learn to do, we learn by doing." -- Virgil

Remember, the oldest among us on these boards had just as little idea of what to do when we started. We've just got some thirty years' head start on you in the art and science of winging it.

 

[AKAmra]

Guilds, Factions and Cults as well as number of other titles are available via drivethrurpg.com from Design Mechanism for $1 each.

 

[alex_greene]

Guilds, Factions and Cults as well as number of other titles are available via drivethrurpg.com from Design Mechanism for $1 each.

Highly recommended, although I have a dead trees version of the aforementioned book which I bought from my FLGS' remainder shelf along with two other Mongoose titles for the grand sum of a fiver.

 

[Mixster]

Encounter balance
Are there any good guides on what a party should be able to handle in terms of combat or is it a case of eyeballing it and learning as I DM?

If you go by the actions you can usually ascertain how much a monster can do. An encounter where one monster has 3 combat actions against 16 from the players needs a very interesting approach from that monster for it to do a lot. Or it needs such insane stats that the players literally can't harm it.

On the other hand, if the players find them battling twice their own number of combat actions, those combat actions need to be only hitting about 40% of the time or the players will get devastated.

So the "weighted amount of combat actions" is probably the best thing to go by, which is relevant skill value times combat actions.

At least that's about how I look at whether I think I can succeed in a fight or I have to run from a players perspective.

 

[DamonJynx]

Mixster is right, you have to judge the CA and skills of the adversaries as well as any special abilities the foes may have. It can be quite tricky as there is no hard and fast rule.

If facing human foes I work on the following as a starting point:

• 1 foe for each PC.
  Skill levels
  Easy encounters have the foes skills at approx 20% lower than the average for the PC's
  Normal encounters the skills are with 10% of the PC's higher or lower
  Hard encounters 1-3 foes (leader types) have skills no more than 20% higher than the average PC's
  Stats in all cases for foes are within 1 or 2 points of or equal to the average (11) except for major named NPC's. This way the CA's don't get out of control and each NPC would probably have 3 at most dual wielding with a shield or off-hand weapon.
  Obviously smart groups overwhelm 1 opponent at a time.

Then I just look at the encounter and build from there. I may add more lesser skilled foes but drastically reduce their HP or something similar. About the only good thing (IMO) to come out of DnD4E was the minions rules, they were great.

Other than that it's pretty much trial and error.

 

[Lemnoc]

I may add more lesser skilled foes but drastically reduce their HP or something similar. About the only good thing (IMO) to come out of DnD4E was the minions rules, they were great.

This is a good policy and keeps things from becoming too certain as players weigh the merits of combat. A few Master fighters dressed as pilgrims to bloody their noses, or a menacing mob of mostly mooks can keep them guessing.

I think an important encounter that should occur right away is one where new players discover that the tactic of Surrender/Running Away is something they can offer or be offered. Coming out of other play systems, where advancement only comes via lethal exchanges, this subtlety may not be immediately understood. Good for them to know and learn mercy.

 

[Prime_Evil]

There's some very good advice in this thread. It's a pity that Signs & Portents is defunct or it would be worth pulling together some of these points into an article for new GMs.

Incidentally, it's worth reading the Runemasters section in the Bordelands & Beyond PDF from Moon Design - it contains some solid advice on designing high-powered opponents as well as some useful advice on spell tactics.

One interesting point that nobody has touched upon yet is the use of mercenaries and hirelings - do any of your characters hire 'expendable' NPC muscle before venturing into dangerous situations? In the movies, heroes are often surrounded by a retinue of minions (aka 'redshirts') who exist only to show the audience how the monster works. And if it's good enough for Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad movies, it's good enough for me :lol:

EDIT: D'oh! I just noticed that there's a separate thread discussing this point...

 

[Mixster]

This is a good policy and keeps things from becoming too certain as players weigh the merits of combat. A few Master fighters dressed as pilgrims to bloody their noses, or a menacing mob of mostly mooks can keep them guessing.

I do however find this highly unrealistic, I mean, if you live by the sword the way most adventurers do. You should probably be able to tell whether a person can fight or not simply from the way he holds the sword.

If I, who's never really fenced alot were to pick up a sword. One look from a champion swordsman would tell him that I don't really know my stuff, my balance could be off, I could have too offensive a pose, or yadda yadda. Therefore as soon as the champions dressed like pilgrims would draw their swords, anyone else who knows how to use one would immediately realize that their pilgrim disguise is a ruse.

 

[FailTruck]

Thanks for all the great advice. Ive picked up those pdf's from DTRPG and i'll have a look at the cult creation rules.

Would bundling different weapon styles into things like

Nord reaver - Axe, shield, spear
Albion Knight - Sword, shield, lance

etc work?

 

[RangerDan]

Thanks for all the great advice. Ive picked up those pdf's from DTRPG and i'll have a look at the cult creation rules.

Would bundling different weapon styles into things like

Nord reaver - Axe, shield, spear
Albion Knight - Sword, shield, lance

etc work?

Absolutely, this is (one of the ways) Combat Styles are meant to be used.

 

[DamonJynx]

Thanks for all the great advice. Ive picked up those pdf's from DTRPG and i'll have a look at the cult creation rules.

Would bundling different weapon styles into things like

Nord reaver - Axe, shield, spear
Albion Knight - Sword, shield, lance

etc work?

Absolutely, this is (one of the ways) Combat Styles are meant to be used.

Couldn't agree more. This is exactly what combat styles are for.

Remember though, that PC's are proficient with their 'preferred' weapons (ie the ones they trained with) from each weapon group.

Using significantly different weapons from the same group incurs a penalty - see the other thread on this subject. For example your Albion Knight, if he selected a war sword as his sword, I would allow him to also use a shortsword or a longsword without penalty, but if he ended up having to fight with a falchion, or rapier the unfamiliar balance and feel of the weapon would impose a 10% (I think that's right) penalty.

 

[Marrethiel]

"Then why are you smiling?"
"I am not left handed either."
Bluff is a great combat skill imo.. the master might be looking for pupils.

 

[RangerDan]

Quoting the Princess Bride automatically wins the thread, like inverse Godwin's Law.
Well played sir.

 

[daxos232]

Just one point on combat that I would like to add. A lot of real life tactics that don't really work in DnD, will work in Legends. Phalanxes and shield walls with spearmen behind, or archers who give cover/act as a distraction for flanking cavalry work great.

Also you can't forget the enviornment. Rivers or difficult terrain really hamper movement and you can find effective cover or hazards to use against enemies.

 

[Dan True]

Just one point on combat that I would like to add. A lot of real life tactics that don't really work in DnD, will work in Legends. Phalanxes and shield walls with spearmen behind, or archers who give cover/act as a distraction for flanking cavalry work great.
.

Yep, suddenly because of the lack of cleave, the best strategy for a fighter ISN'T to get surrounded by the weakest of the mooks and then greater cleave them all in one go.
In DnD it wouldn't help to roll logs unto them from a hill or collapse the balcony they're standing on either, as falling / natural causes damage are so low that even mid level characters can handle it without a sweat (I assume they designed the system such that mundane dangers wouldn't be a problem - to land on a more heroic level).

Thinking out of the box can land you a great deal of edge in Legend

- Dan